


I'm still standing

by Brynnen, Piemachine (Brynnen)



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Bobbi is fabulous, Danny is an adorable musicocentric dork, Everyone is stuck in their heads, Friendship, Gen, Sharing of feelings, Sherman is probably depressed, communication is awesome, fears for the future, flangst, shadows of the past, together they ROCK!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 16:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14752706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brynnen/pseuds/Brynnen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brynnen/pseuds/Piemachine
Summary: After the one night reunion concert Danny, Bobbi and Sherman have a much overdue discussion.A little fluff, a little angst and quite a lot of coffee at the all night diner.





	I'm still standing

'Woah man! We got our mojo back!' Danny enthused, playing a jazzy augmented ninth on his un-amped guitar for emphasis.

Bobbi grinned without breaking stride towards his instrument case, his golden coat swung with every step and he felt fabulous. 'They loved us!'

Danny's smile widened at that and he turned to Sherman, the last member of the band, the last piece of his broken heart.

Sherman startled at the attention, caught in the middle of mopping his brow with a pocket handkerchief. The surprise melted into a soft expression as he looked back at the others with nostalgic affection. 'It's good to be back. Wanna catch up at the all night diner on Main?'

'You still go there?' Bobbi managed to catch himself before he made the inevitable comment about Swa- Sherman's eating. He hadn't missed the constant bitching of the last months of LH, didn't want to spoil the night when it had gone so well.

'It still makes the best pie in the Tri-State Area.'

'And serves a mean cup of joe.' Danny added. 'Can't believe I never saw ya there, man. The amount of nights I'm there it's crazy we haven't bumped into each other!'

Sherman looked down awkwardly, using the excuse of loading his drum kit into Danny's van to avoid eye contact. 'I kinda hid whenever I saw you coming in.'  
  
Danny winced. 'I know I was an asshole during the split but I wasn't that much of an asshole was I?' He wasn't sure if he really wanted to hear the answer to that question.

'Nah, none of us acted like saints back then. It wasn't that.' Sherman waved Danny's guilt away easily, trying to soothe him. Those wounds had had long enough to heal.

As the van pulled out onto the rapidly emptying streets Bobbi looked over his shoulder to look at Sherman, crammed into the back between all their gear. He'd fit better ten years and twenty-odd pounds ago, but then ten years ago Bobbi's dynamic stage moves hadn't made his knees ache so yeah, things changed.

Swampy had always had a sweet tooth and after the split Bobbi had fallen headlong into his own vices for comfort. He couldn't really rag on Swampy for that when he'd... He shook away that dark thought, now wasn't the time.

'So if you weren't cut up over the split why hide from Danny? Danville's not so big that's gonna work for long. Heck, Danny even gets his hair trimmed at my salon!'

Danny demonstratively shook his hair like he was in a shampoo advert, setting his ponytail swaying. He switched the radio over to a station playing classic rock and concentrated on the road. He wasn't sure if he was ready to hear and say the unspoken things that had piled up over the years, the concert had been so good couldn't they have the joy of that for just a big longer before it all fell down? They'd played together as easily as if they'd last rehearsed together only last week, he didn't want them to go straight back to the backbiting just as easily. But like a wise man once sang, 'You can't always get what you want'.

'I need a good strong cup of coffee before I talk about that.' Sherman said with a sigh.

'Huh, you quit drinkin' too?' Danny recognised the unsaid stuff there and chipped in sympathetically. His own tone of voice said enough that the other two didn't push for more information. He was amazed at how well they could still catch that kinda thing.

'Your skin will thank you for that.' Bobbi tried to say something positive in response to that potentially alarming admission. Tonight had been fun once they'd stopped arguing and just started playing together. It had made him remember just how good the good times had been and his fingers itched to start creating new costumes. Danny had broadened out a little and Swa- Sherman wasn't going to be able to get away with his old cropped singlet styles any more, but he could work with those changes, help 'em own their new bodies. Maybe something in a good stiff velvet, structured but luxe.... Oh he could do marvellous things with their bodies as his canvas...

'Right on, dude.' Danny smiled to Bobbi, letting him see his gratitude. Maybe they hadn't appreciated each other enough back then.

The neon lights of the late night diner shone pink in the dark street and Bobbi felt a pang of nostalgia. 'It's been a while, I haven't been here since we stayed up all night writing 'Whole Lotta Goodbyes'.'

'It hasn't changed much. Zelda still waits tables, the jukebox still only plays the records it feels like playin' and the meatloaf is still weird as all getout.' Danny summarised as he helped Sherman scramble out of the back, noting the drummer's clammy palms. Jeez he was as scared as Danny felt.

Bobbi perked up and strode into the place with that strut that had made most women and a notable percentage of men squeal when he did it onstage. He pushed the doors open with dramatic flair and winked at Zelda, who didn't turn a hair.

'The usual, Bobbi?' She checked, moving towards the coffee machine like it hadn't been more than a decade since he'd last been in. She'd thickened around the middle a little and her hair was showing grey at the temples, but she was the same old Zelda alright.

'Mmhmm, you got it!'

Their usual table was free and Zelda brought over their coffees as they took their seats. An uneasy silence settled and Danny concentrated on pouring cream and sugar into his cup.

Sherman sighed, wrapping his fingers around his warm cup. His shoulders were hitched up in that way they always did when he felt insecure. 'I was gonna explain why you never saw me here, huh?'

Two slices of pie and a waffle arrived thanks to Zelda, Danny's with cream and Sherman's with his usual scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

'Only if you wanna, man.' Danny said. The high of performing had worn off and all he felt now was sad for what they'd lost.

Sherman smiled. 'I think it's about time we talked. Those strange kids all came to us today, right?'

The other two nodded, waiting to see where he was going with this.

'One day, one conversation with each of us to persuade us to get the band back together, even for just one performance for their parents.'

'Who are a seriously cute couple.' Bobbi chipped in, smiling at the memory of that kiss between them. He chewed on a mouthful of waffle with a rueful grin at how easily they'd got caught up in the sappy scheme.

'True. But it took them all of an hour to persuade all three of us to come back? We wanted this, and I don't want to waste this chance, or let myself make the same mistakes I made first time around. So I gotta let you know what's been going on in my life instead of keeping quiet and then us all just blowing up at each other instead a just sayin' what the matter is like sensible adults.'

The other two exchanged a look and nodded. That sounded alarmingly sensible.

'I missed you guys almost as soon as I got off the tour-bus that last time. For all the fighting we did at the end, I regretted the split as soon as I got off the bus. That sent me to a bad place and the job I got at the library just gave me too much time to think. Which was pretty much the opposite of what I needed, in retrospect.

'Then I realised the old ladies didn't notice my hangovers and after a while that logically progressed to not sobering up coming into work, which turned into day drinking, first a hair of the dog to get me through the morning and then just straight up making all my coffees Irish.'

Sherman downed his unspiked coffee in one go, then let out a shuddering sigh, regret written across his features. 'It didn't solve the problems I had, but it blurred the sharp edges of the hurt and I could have carried on like that until it killed me, but...'

He stopped again as Zelda came over and refilled their coffees and the waitress cracked a smile at the threesome. She received three rather strained smiles in return.

Danny placed his hand over Sherman's, concerned by the haunted expression Sherman wore. 'You don't gotta do this now, man. We got time.'

Sherman shook his head, spreading his fingers so Danny's intertwined between them. 'I want to get this said, so we can move on past it.'

'Okay.' Danny squeezed his fingers and across from them Bobbi stretched out his legs to press his knees into the other two's legs without saying a word. The white-haired fashionista looked sombre, holding his tongue to give Swampy the space he needed.

'So yeah, where was I... Oh, yeah. The first anniversary of our split. I took the day off work, went on a bender. It ended badly. I came to in a metronome factory three days later with no memory beyond walking into the bar already half-drunk. My wallet was gone, my left arm was bandaged with the remains of my jacket and I had a hangover so bad I couldn't see straight for the rest of the week.' He pulled a face and his voice grew even more serious. 'There was another after effect - I lost the beat.'

'Coulda fooled me the way you played tonight! You were on fire!' Danny protested in disbelief.

Sherman shrugged. 'You weren't there. It was gone and it stayed gone right up 'til those kids cajoled it back ta me today. I couldn't even walk in time for the first few days during the hangover.'

He shook his head, staring back into the past with haunted eyes. 'I don't know what happened in that factory, but for years afterwards I couldn't even tap my foot, let alone lift a drumstick.' He shrugged himself back to the present, shaking off the horror. 'I got the messed up arm treated, which wiped out most my savings, poured out every drop of booze in my apartment and the library and just... accepted my new lot in life.'

'But do you want to keep accepting that as your lot in life?' Bobbi asked. 'You deserve more than library cards, silence and awful polyester carpets!'

The other two blinked at that passionate outburst from the band member less likely to view Sherman sympathetically. Danny shifted uncomfortably, he'd always just tried to ignore the stuff that wasn't music because it wasn't music, but it was clearly important to the guys and they were important to him, so he resolved to do better.

'Bobbi's right. You deserve better than gettin' by.'

Sherman ducked his head to avoid their eyes and mumbled, 'Didn't think a slob like me deserved anything other than t'wallow in their own filth.'

Bobbi flinched at his own words. 'You listened to me, a Mister Clean wannabe?' He quoted back at Sherman and then sighed, dragging a hand through his hair.

'You don't get it, do you?' He asked rhetorically. 'It really annoys me when you do dumb stuff like eating cake out the freaking garbage or don't bother changing your clothes for three days because that tells me you don't care about your own health and well-being.

'When you do shit like that you tell the world you're not worth the effort or their respect, that you don't deserve to be treated any better than the trash-pile you look like. If you can't respect yourself, how can anyone else be expected to?' Bobbi suddenly realised he'd raised his voice to a near-shout during his rant and everyone was staring at him open-mouthed.

Sherman gawped at him, eyes wide. 'I never... I never realised you thought of it that way.'

The rest of the diner customers suddenly busied themselves with their meals, the clatter of cutlery on plates filling the silence that had fallen at the Love Händel table.

'That... that explains so much.' Sherman said quietly. He looked up at Bobbi with a visible effort. 'I'm sorry, man. But I've never thought of it like that. I'm not doing it on purpose. I don't have your standards, but I can try harder, maybe be a bit less of a slob.'

'And if you can make an effort with that I suppose I can try to remember that you're not doing things to annoy me and try not to be too judgey.' Bobbi admitted in return. 'But please don't eat cake you found lying around, in or out of the trash. You don't know where it's been!'

'That really bugs you huh? I just hate t'see good food go to waste, yaknow?' He caught Bobbi's horrified expression and held his hands up in surrender. 'Yeah, that's one thing I can agree to since it means so much to you. So anyway, what have you been up to since we split?'

Danny wondered at how naturally the tone of their discussion made the band's split sound like a failed love affair, but Love Händel had actually been the most serious relationship he'd ever been in, so maybe it was just him projecting.

'Me?' Bobbi seemed wrong footed by the shift, but adapted easily bowing his head as if in confessional. 'Oh, I was glad to be free of you for the first few weeks. I slept with every enthusiastically consenting adult in the Tri-State area during that time, enjoying the privacy of not living in a cramped tour-bus; I even went to a few very pleasant group events, but a gentleman never kisses and tells.'

'And you are a classy dude.' Danny agreed easily. He'd always been the one the fans wanted and had always treated their groupies impeccably as far as Danny could tell.

'But anyway, it did get a bit dull after a while.' Bobbi looked a little wistful. 'I started to think that for all our flaws, Love Händel had never been boring.

'So I started the salon as my way of giving back, helping people feel as fabulous as possible.'

Danny wondered if Bobbi knew how that sounded, a bit pathetic like a consolation prize he'd awarded himself to erase the memories of just how good he'd had it before. He'd been lonely too, right?

'So what about you, Danny?' Bobbi wasn't in an introspective mood then.

Danny looked at the other two, trying to decide what to say, how deep to go. Hell, he might as well lay it out straight and be done with it.

'Where t'start? I missed you the next morning when I started my regular practice and you guys weren't there. I lost my mojo.

'So I decided t'take a break, relax, listen to new music before launching the inevitable solo career. But that sucked too, no one to tell about the awesome new songs I'd just heard, no reason to get up, no one reminding me that whiskey isn't dinner.

'So anyway, I got fed up of the three day hangovers eventually, tried joining other bands, but no one wanted me - it's hard to blaze a trail when your front man has a reputation from Love Händel.

'Eventually I figured if I couldn't have you guys, I could at least have music and so I set up the store. The teaching got me off the booze in the end. New players and hangovers just don't mix.'

Danny shrugged. 'I got a few band gigs later on, but it wasn't the same.' He looked at the other two, how they stared at him with big solemn eyes too full of understanding for him to bullshit through this. 'I feel like you guys walked out with a piece of me when you went.'

'So we've all missed each other.' Bobbi concluded rather redundantly. 'And as Swa-Sherman said, those strange little people didn't exactly have to work too hard to persuade us to get back together.' He smiled at the memory of their song and dance number at the salon. He hadn't felt that alive in years.

'Are you suggesting what I think you are?' Danny tried to keep the embarrassing neediness out of his voice.

'This time we've all got stuff other than the band. Places of our own to go and reset when we start to bug each other. We could take it slow, see how it goes.' Sherman pointed out, voice carefully diffident.

'It's official then!' Bobbi concluded, giving them both that big fabulous smile that lit up a room. 'We're getting the band back together!'

**Author's Note:**

> I saw episode 22 'We're getting the band back together' recently and instantly came to adore these three goofballs. 
> 
> There's not an awful lot of source material on them, so I struggled a bit with characterisation but it was fun to explore Bobbi and Sherman's conflict and try and pad out that bizarre metronome story!
> 
> These guys might be my new favourite characters!


End file.
